BandAds: Where the Rubber Meets the Rolled

Eric Corwin came up with the idea for BandAds ? wide rubber bands printed with advertising logos or promotional messages. But it was his wife, not the one-time New York Times Syndicate columnist, who first thought about wrapping BandAds around newspapers: “The light went on,” he says. The Los Angeles Times tested the concept a few times, and then rolled it out with BandAds promoting Disneyland stretched around 300,000 copies.

“I was bringing my kids to school that day, and five or six kids already had the bands around their wrists ? at 8 a.m. I thought, that’s amazing,” Corwin says.

Corwin’s HomeStretch Media is rolling out BandAds nationally as a unique way to get ads on the front page ? similar in approach to Post-it notes ? but these also can be a cool collectible. “They’re colorful, they’re a biodegradable product,” he says. “And it’s amazing how much text you can get on a rubber band about three-and-a-half inches by half- an-inch wide.”

While Corwin says he has agreements with several big groups, the Los Angeles Times appears to be the only paper using BandAds as of mid-June.